Posts Tagged ‘JZX81’

This year’sFormula Drift event held at Evergreen Speedway marked the sixth year that the track has hosted the FD Seattle event. Having been at every single one, I can honestly say that this year was no less amazing as every year before it. The stands and the pits were packed with adults and children alike, with every single person smiling from ear to ear! Read more...

Formula Drift in Seattle is definitely one of my favorite stops on the Formula D tour. It always happens in the middle of the summer, and summertime is the best time to visit Seattle anyway! The event planners at Formula Drift always seem to pick the FD Seattle weekend perfectly, when the rainy state of Washington is blessed with a little break from the gloomy rain, and the sun comes out to put everybody in a good mood!

Since most drift fans outside of Seattle were able to watch the event play-by-play on Justin.TV's Formula D Driftstream, Seattle-based MotorMavens sharpshooter Yoshi Shindo and I decided we'd post up photographic highlights from the event, based on our own experiences there! Read more...

The lesser-told stories of Formula Drift involve the homegrown teams and drivers who work their way up the rankings at grassroots and ProAm events to get the opportunity to pour out their own blood, sweat (and money) to face the best professional drifters in America. They represent the spirit of the sport.

In the spirit of representing the spirit of the sport (say that three times fast!), rookie Formula D driver Alex Lee came all the way down from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to debut his Driftmania Canadian Championship (DMCC) West winning 1990 Toyota Cresta at Long Beach! And he certainly did it with a bang! Read more...

If you like 1JZGTE poweredToyota Soarers, Chasers, Crestas and Mark IIs of the JZZ30, JZX81, JZX90, JZX100, and JZX110 varieties… if you like watching videos of cars from Japanese street drifting teams like Team Julius, Canopus (Hi Tokichan!), then you’ll love this video of the ST Garage 1JZ Drift Festival at Fuji Speedway! It even features cameos of some of our ‘drifting blogosphere’ friends from Japan… Hello Alexi! Congrats on your trophy! (more…)

Things have been pretty hectic lately for the MotorMavens crew and myself. With work responsibilities as well as travelling around shooting, I haven't had much time to sit down and write this properly. What's crazy is it's only been a little over a week since Wembley and I've already been to Silverstone for the final round of JDM Allstars!

I don't like to do things by halves and I couldn't leave you readers hanging on just one feature. So, while I work on the photos from Silverstone, here are the highlights of what happened on day two of JDM Allstars at Wembley Stadium. Read more...

Mineral Wells is a small city nestled deep in the countryside west of Dallas, Texas. It is a calm, rural town surrounded by rolling hills and farmland. The atmosphere is generally peaceful and quiet, but occasionally through the year the silence is broken by the sounds of screeching tires, exhausts, and blow off valves as drifters roll in to participate in one of the most premiere drifting venues in the state!

The drifting is held in a lot located just behind the runway at the Mineral Wells Airport. It was built over sixty years ago as a Cold War helicopter landing pad and decommissioned shortly afterward - sitting empty for years until automotive enthusiasts began renting it out for grassroots events. What makes this venue so incredible is the vast expanse of open area. With enough cones, you can build a course easily capable of triple digit entry speeds. You won't find a faster venue in the state. The large size also allows plenty of room for trucks, trailers, and tents as well.

Aaron Losey of Fabricated Motorsports (the guy in the striped shirt and beanie) is the man behind the majority of the drift events in Texas. His events are always very well organized and safe, with a fun and laid back atmosphere. The attendance level is usually very good, with driver experience ranging from some of the best talent in the nation to absolute rookies with no driving time whatsoever. Luckily, the more experienced drivers are always willing to offer assistance and Aaron usually spends the majority of his time giving hands-on training. Read more...

While many of the best grassroots drifters in the United States (oh, and don't forget Canada, eh!) were out in Southern Cali for the Formula D Pro Am at Irwindale, I had the chance to catch up with Ameen Rizvi from 786 Motoring in Houston, Texas, the driver of everyone's favorite metallic brown MX83 Toyota Cressida.

Since Ameen and his Cressida were busy doing another shoot on the Irwindale banking on the actual day of the Pro Am, I asked Ameen if he'd be down to meet up with me and the other members of the Motor Mavens Crew the following day. Ameen and his brother Amir graciously obliged, and decided meet up with us for a late, late breakfast at Flappy Jack's on Route 66 in Glendora CA, with a whole bunch of other trucks from Texas with drift cars in tow not too far behind.

Those of us who have been following the drifting scene pretty closely have known about Ameen and his Cressida for quite some time now. After all, it's not often you see a four door,non-240SX rise up through the ranks of grassroots drifting competition in the USA. Wait a minute... but Ameen did drive a 240SX. To clarify things, Ameen used to drive an S13, but when he first began drifting in 2001, he was doing it in a Mk3 Toyota Supra (MA70). Since he started out in a Supra, it was only natural that he would become enamored of Toyota's mighty 1JZGTE straight-six engine, which came as stock in the Japan-market JZA70 Supra Turbo. Well, that and he blew up a ton of US-market 7MGE engines when he was trying to use them for drifting. Bad idea. 7MGE engines are notorious like BIG for blowing head gaskets, overheating, and cracking the stupid OEM plastic intake piping. Just like Biggie, they're ready to die.

So if he started out with a Toyota Supra, why move to a four door family car like a Cressida one might ask..? Well, when Ameen was doing research on building his MA70 Supra, he discovered that the chassis of the MA70 Supra and MX83 Cressida were extremely similar, and many of the engine and suspension parts were the same as well. The tipping point was when Ameen saw an internet clip of D1 driver Tsuyoshi Tezuka's JZX81 Chaser. "When I saw Tezuka's 81 on the internet," Ameen explains, "that's when I knew I was gonna build up a Cressida for sure." Read more...

As the gloomy rainy season begins for many of us, I thought I’d post up a cool rainy drift video, reminding us that the rain isn’t all that bad… it saves tires!

Chasers, Mark IIs, Soarers, Silvias, 180SXs, Skylines, Levins, Truenos and RX7s… I stumbled across this gem on Vimeo recently, featuring lots of awesome Japanese cars at the famous Nikko Circuit. The entire three-part series is viewable on MayDayGarage.com, check it out!

Motor Mavens has never really featured any “build videos” on the site before, but today as I was browsing the internet looking for information about MX83 Cressidas, 5-speed swaps, and 1JZ swaps… I found this video, from the Serial Nine guys in Canada. This has GOT to be the most entertaining, amateur made “build video” I’ve ever seen. Yep, gotta love those amateur videos. Wait… what? Oh… umm, well I mean the video is informative, but it’s funny at the same time! The Serial Nine crew definitely looks like they’d be fun to kick it with.

So what do you guys think…? Some of us were thinking of having a little fun by building a Motor Mavens project car on a BUDGET. Ideally, the car would be inexpensive and also daily drivable on the street without much hassle from cops. Just brainstorming, some of us were talking about maybe building an FC or an S13… but this video is sparking some MX83 dreams… what do you guys think? MX83 build? Yay or nay?